Roy Halladay’s performance yesterday was a writer’s dream. In an age where the media wants to hype every player and every game as “the best ever?” – what do they do when they actually witness something that does belong in the analogs of history. What do they do when hyperbole is actually warranted? How do they distinguish a truly amazing performance from all the other great performances they have tried to hype up? I could sit here and try to eloquently describe yesterday as one would describe a symphony, but instead, I’ll just settle for the words I would try to fit in…

Masterful.

Powerful.

Calculated.

Surgical.

Silly.

Overwhelming.

Devastating.

Drowning.

Heavy.

But the one that came to mind for me first was…

Legendary.

Watching that game last night, I couldn’t help but think that this is what is must have been like to watch Walter Johnson on the mound. Or Bob Gibson. Or Satchel Paige. A man among boys. Someone who makes the game look unfair. Someone who looks like they are throwing a ball made of iron when the hitter make “contact.” I feel fortunate to be able to watch Halladay pitch at all, let alone for the team I’ve followed my entire life.

Needless to say, my reaction to all this was “I have to examine every pitch.”

So that’s what I did.

I compiled all the pitch data from the MLB.com “Gameday” feature, and here’s what I found…

20% contact rate on his change-up?? Wow – what a difference maker that pitch has been.

He throws his fastball and cutter to get outs on contact, and uses his curve and change when he needs an swing and miss. Must be nice to have 4 “go-to” pitches.

His fastball moves so much that on the Gameday feature, they had trouble distinguishing between his change-up and fastball, incorrectly marking it several times.

To me, the cutter is the pitch that sets him apart. He throws is harder than anyone is baseball except Mariano Rivera. Hitters think they are getting a fastball to hit (cause you aren’t hitting the soft stuff) and the best they can usually do is a soft grounder.

Well, that’s all I got for now. What a game. Hopefully the Phillies come out with a DVD with both this and the perfect game on it, so we’ll be able to watch them for years to come.

Assuming he has 3 more seasons like this last one and then retires (let’s also assume that with 3 more seasons like this last one, he wins 1 more Cy Young and while were at it, let’s assume he wins a World Series), what team do you think would be depicted on his Hall of Fame plaque?

Maybe you looked some stuff up, that’s just my gut reaction.
Assuming he has 3 more seasons like this last one and then retires (let’s also assume that with 3 more seasons like this last one, he wins 1 more Cy Young and while were at it, let’s assume he wins a World Series), what team do you think would be depicted on his Hall of Fame plaque?>

I wanna say it was Cito Gaston who I heard in an interview this summer that talked about Doc. He predicted that Doc woulde pitch into his early 40s, citing his work ethic as the enabler. If that develops, Doc has 8-9 years left. Guesses on Doc’s Hall of Fame cap and the like based on that seem pretty premature.

My only point is that I don’t consider it very realistic to think of Doc retiring in 3 years.

Doc was at the Bank working out at 10 AM this morning. Think that’s leadership? That’s 10 Eastern time if you are scoring at home. He turned down Letterman and the likes, citing his con’s birthday as first priority.

<<off the top of your head who are the 5 greatest pitchers and 5 greatest position players to have ever worn a Phillies uniform in the past 50 years?
>>

I think if he retired tomorrow he’d have a good shot. And if he keeps it going through age 36 (I see no reason why he won’t), he’ll be a first ballot guy and in the best RHP ever discussion.>>

Well, I’m pursuing a ridiculous point because he’s not, but there would be precedent for that, Sandy, out at 30.

But just as a point of consideration, and no need to denounce this list, I guess from season’s start, is from the BaseballReference.com Halladay page. Only 1 Hall of Famer made the players comparable list.

Guid

Hudson

Saberhagen

CC

Don Newcombe

Dizzy Dean (HofF)

Larry Corcharan

Johan

Eddie Lopat

from that standpoint, if he called it a day after this year, maybe not.

I will say thyat at a comparable age, Doc is not as odds on as Maddux was. Continued embellishment of his numbers won’t hurt.

When the Reds take the field Friday for Game 2 of the NLDS against the Philadelphia Phillies, they will have played 30 straight innings in Citizens Bank Park without scoring a run. Not one.
During their previous visit to Philadelphia in July, they were shut out in their last two games of the four-game series and didn’t score in their last three innings of the second game. And then, of course, they not only didn’t score a run in Game One of the NLDS Wednesday, they didn’t get a hit.

I think that Cabrera’s comments were just his; the rest of the team didn’t mention anything according to some Reds writers on Twitter. Also. at least one writer wrote that he thought that the home plate ump was very fair

Baseball-reference has their list of the ten best pitching Game Scores in post-season history. Halladay comes in at #4.

When looking at lists of pitching Game Scores you find that, since basically all of these games are very low-hit, low-walk games and as such are all pretty comparable, strikeouts are what pushes a guy closer to the top of the list. I know that I’m probably the only one that cares about this but I wonder if there couldn’t be something else taken into account besides strikeouts, namely efficiency, that can also be rewarded with points to raise a Game Score.

I got thinking about how Greg Maddux would routinely throw complete games on very few pitches. I did a quick search and found 4 games that stick out:

I will admit that, were he able to turn a few of those hits into strikeouts, Maddux would have ended up with a more dominant start in each case. Leaving the hits aside though, would throwing more pitches and striking out a few more hitters turn any one of those CG shutouts into a more dominant outing than he already turned in? I mean, facing only 28 batters and retiring 27 on 84 pitches seems pretty dominant to me. It’s just that instead of it being an overpowering, blow-you-away dominance, it is a masterful, carve-you-up-with-surgical-precision dominance. It’s also something I see as equally worthy of being rewarded. How do you go about doing it? Maybe by awarding 1 point for every 10 pitches you are below a certain threshhold, say 110 pitches for example.

Anybody else agree with me that efficiency like that should count in measuring how good a start is?

Anybody else agree with me that efficiency like that should count in measuring how good a start is?>>

I can’t answer that. But I might be inclined tio think its some degree of overanalysis.

But I can tell you this. Maddux had a reputation for setting up guys for future at bats. He’d tease a guy with a gimme pitch one at bat, and turn around and have him set up for destruction anywhere from the next at bat to later that summer. If that wasn’t part of his repetoire, his mumbers listed in the post would have even been sicker. Charlie described Doc last night as Maddux with power. Verducci threw Koufax into the equation today. Maybe the only guy that looked less like a pitcher than the Mad Dog is this guy throwing tonight. I can’t help but wonder if all this Doc love today isn’t firing up TL.

b.ski: i agree with you about efficiency. though I’m not sure pitch count is even viable as a factor when judging that. results, that’s what matters. different pitchers have different styles. a Justin Verlander (power and strikeouts) vs. a Chris Young (finesse and placement) will give you very different results in that category.
it’s not like every pitcher is given a finite number of pitches he can throw.
hey if you can throw 200, throw 200, if your arm’s that strong. if it is that strong, does that make you better or worse than the guy who did the same with 105.
it would be an unfair measure and favor a certain type of pitcher.

That is exactly why I brought up the subject of efficiency as an equal measure of dominance in the first place, jkay. Because the way a Game Score is calculated now does favor a certain type of pitcher…a strikeout pitcher, and unfairly (to me) penalizes (or does not recognize) other types of pitchers.

results, that’s what matters. different pitchers have different styles.

Again, exactly the point I was trying to make. Results are all that matters. The goal is to record 27 outs and there is more than one way to do that, so why award more credit for the same results for doing it one way over another? I understand that strikeouts are singled out because they are more or less under the direct control of the pitcher. What I am saying is that having the command and control to consistently prevent hitters from making solid contact and retiring hitters quickly is also more or less under the direct control of the pitcher as well (at least the really good ones, on whose behalf I am making this argument).

I mean, is a game in which a pitcher throws a 1-hit shutout by dispatching hitters with only one or two pitches apiece and recording 27 outs on pop-ups and weak ground balls any less dominant because he didn’t strike anybody out? Yes striking out the side is dominant, but so is recording 3 outs on 5 pitches, IMO.

I don’t know if pitch count is the best way to give a pitcher credit for efficiency, but I do think he deserves some sort of credit for being efficient.

Yes striking out the side is dominant, but so is recording 3 outs on 5 pitches, IMO.>>

I don’t want to discourage tyou one bit from pursuit of this discussion abnd thought process,I’m just going to offer my way of looking at it, which is kind of like my reaction for many years to the water coioler rhetoric of who is/was better, Mays, Aaron or Clemente. Who cares? I’d take any of them in a heartbeat.

But as to what I copied above, even if 3 outs on 5 pitches is dominant, was it done in Game 6 a la Larsen, or in the 10th inning of Game 7 a la Jack Morris. Conlin wrote of a gem Lefty pitched against the Giants this morning. Before 6000 people. Maybe he shouild ghet extra credit because Doc did it before a motivating crowd. Was it done against the 27 Yanks, or the 88 Dodgers, or 2010 Braves for that matter? Was it done at night, or in a 5 o clock start in SoCal with the shadows having a dramatic effect on the early innings?

I just don’t know how you can qualify that seperation between greratnesses. I will say that the power versus stuff driven great performance is maybe more captivating, but to those that appreciate good pitching, either is brilliant. One fun aspect about watching any well pitched game is the mixing of pitches, in location and type, but Mariano throws 1 pitch, and that’s as fun to watch. To me, one is as good as the other. Measuring which is better by a statistical breakdown might be good water cooler discussion, but I guess it just doesn’t make me thirsty.

I will say that the power versus stuff driven great performance is maybe more captivating, but to those that appreciate good pitching, either is brilliant. One fun aspect about watching any well pitched game is the mixing of pitches, in location and type, but Mariano throws 1 pitch, and that’s as fun to watch. To me, one is as good as the other.

Again, exactly my point. I am not trying to say that one isbetter than the other, rather that one (efficiency) is as good as the other (strikeouts). The way that Game Score is calculated does not reflect this, which is what got me started on the whole thing in the first place.

I completely agree that it is certainly not worth opening up a federal investigation into the matter, and that was not at all my intent. Just meant to point out what I perceive to be a shortcoming in the accounting and wondering if anyone else sees it that way too.

Dave Cameron is telling the Reds to stick with the same strategy he provided for them prior to game 1.

And so, just like with game one, I’d argue that the Reds best chances of winning tonight involve pulling Arroyo early. You’re tempting fate every time you ask him to get the Rollins-Victorino-Utley-Howard group out more than once. With Aroldis Chapman fresh and the day off tomorrow, I think the Reds should empty their bullpen tonight, regardless of what the score is early. Arroyo gets the first 11 batters and that’s it. If he gets 11 outs, great. If he only gets five or six, well, you live with it.Once Utley comes to the plate a second time, I’d have Chapman on the mound. Yes, Utley is good against left-handed pitchers, but Chapman is not your average LHP, and the odds of him putting one over the wall are substantially higher against Arroyo. You’re going to want Chapman in against Howard and Ibanez anyway, so maximize the batters he faces by bringing him in to face Utley.Even though he’s been used in shorter stints out of the bullpen, he’s clearly got the ability to go multiple innings, and I’d try to squeak nine outs out of him if I could. He’s probably the Reds best chance to put zeros on the board, and that’s what they need tonight.

His line against lefties this year was right in line with his career numbers, so he hasn’t gotten any better at getting them out. And, of course, the Phillies line-up is going to be lefty heavy tonight. It’s not a good match-up for the Reds starter.

for pitchers like Arroyo, you will know the result early on. if he’s gonna get hit, you’ll be able to tell by the 2nd or 3rd inning. he’ll either have trouble getting Phillies out and run up his PC, get tattooed with a big inning or possibly be frustrating the lineup by inducing fly balls and ground-outs.

b.ski: baseball stats have been evolving. rest assured some new stat will be invented to placate your sentiment. it’s only a matter of time. but it will not hold as much weight as you want. for this is America, land of the cowboys. Nobody gets excited by accuracy and efficiency, we want Ks baby!!

Just doing a quick check around the websites before the game starts and what do I find? Joe Posnanski has an article about Game Score and how Lincecum’s score of 96 for his two-hitter is higher than Halladay’s 94 for his no-hitter. Funny, huh? Here is some of what he had to say:

Game Score is a Bill James invention, a little statistic that gives you a quick and easy, single-number look at how well a pitcher pitched. My sense is that it has always supposed to be little more than a bit of shorthand fun… but I think it has turned out to be one of Bill’s more delightful inventions. The numbers just FEEL right.I don’t think Game Scores are supposed to be considered gospel; but they are fun ways to compare some of the great pitched games

In Game Score, a 100 is pretty much perfection.

A 90 or better is pretty close to legendary.

Lincecum’s 96 Game Score ranks fourth all-time in postseason play. It also scores higher than Halladay’s no-hitter. There will be some people who don’t like the way Game Score weighs strikeouts and walks, who think no-hitters and perfect games should ALWAYS score higher than non-no-hitters and non-perfect-games, and I get that. But there is another side to the issue. There are people who believe that these are the only things a pitcher has any real control over: Strikeouts, walks and home runs allowed. There’s a lot of fascinating statistical evidence on the subject.

Not that it matters. I don’t know which was the better-pitched game. It’s hard to pick against a no-hitter. But it’s also hard to pick against a 14-strikeout shutout. It’s hard to pick against searing, inevitable dominance. It’s also hard to pick against buoyant, overpowering pitching joy.

In the end, they were two of the greatest postseason performances ever in the postseason.

Posnanski also had some nice words about Halladay and his accomplishment:

Halladay’s no-hitter was so dominating that when he walked Jay Bruce, my only thought was: “Oh, that’s too bad. Now he will only throw a no-hitter instead of a perfect game.” And that was in the fifth inning — two or three innings AFTER I felt sure that the Reds would not get a hit.In my lifetime, only Halladay has given me that sense of certainty. Pedro Martinez at his peak is the best pitcher I have ever seen. Greg Maddux at his peak was my favorite pitcher, the closest thing to an artist I ever expect to see on a baseball diamond. Roger Clemens’ dominance, Randy Johnson’s dominance, Dwight Gooden’s dominance in 1984 and ’85, Johan Santana’s dominance in the middle part of this decade, Steve Carlton’s dominance, Tom Seaver’s dominance, Ron Guidry’s dominance… they all had their own special character.But only Halladay — for me, anyway — pitches with what I call “retroactivity.” When Halladay is on, like he was against the Reds, it honestly feels like I’m watching him on replay, in a Ken Burns documentary, like the thing has already happened and it’s already famous, like the Thrilla in Manilla or the Texas-USC game. I feel like I’m watching it for the fifth or sixth time. It’s a bit like a new song that sounds like you have already heard it a hundred times before.*Halladay’s genius against Cincinnati drew a 94 Game Score… same as Larsen’s perfecto. Halladay struck out eight, walked one, broke bats, broke Cincinnati hearts, left them all in a helpless heap and notched the second-highest postseason Game Score of the last 40 years.